Rhineland - Pfalz, Germany, Permian, 290 million years ago. A major plant fossil like this is not only priceless in its scarcity, but the beauty and aesthetic it possesses can turn any interior into an instant shrine to natural history when a piece like this is put on display. It is a stunning exhibition specimen and where most plant fossils are small and fragmentary, this is a unusually large example seldom seen. With the majority of large plant fossils coming from the Eocene deposits of the Green River Formation in North America, a plant fossil of this magnitude and completeness, coming from the Permian Period, puts in in a class all its own. The plant fossil comes from a time BEFORE the first dinosaurs and the geological era marks the most dramatic planetary extinction event in history. Crating and freight carrier is required. Size: 33" W x 25" H (83.8 cm x 63.5 cm)

This is a fossilized pair of branches from a giant tree fern of the species Pecopteris. Pecopteris was a prehistoric giant tree fern that on average, grew to a height of around 13 feet. A photograph at the bottom of this page demonstrates what this tree fern might have looked like nearly 300 million years ago, before the first dinosaurs. Fragments of fossil tree fern branches are common but a COMPLETE giant tree fern branch with the main stem and radiating fronds, is scientifically an incredibly rare occurrence. The fossil is on a rock that was rather frangible and necessitated having the fossil stabilized. The overall thickness of this slab is approximately .75 inches and has been reinforced with epoxy. Typical repair and minor restoration to missing portions amounting to about 10% to 15%. It was reconstructed from several associated pieces excavated together. Surrounding rock is original to the fossil. Ferns comprise a large group of plants that have a fossil record dating back to the Carboniferous Period, 360 million years ago. During this time, they were the dominant vegetation on the planet. About half of the fern foliage in the Carboniferous developed seeds versus conventional reproduction by spores, leading to the term "seed fern". Many modern families of ferns living today did not appear until the late Cretaceous Period. The leaves of ferns are called fronds and each frond is made up of leaflets. Ferns typically reproduce by the generation of dust-like, single cell spores which are generated from the fern sporangia structures. These spores act like seeds and in an ideal situation, fall to ground and begin to multiply with the right amount of light and moisture. Eventually, these tiny growths become a separate fern. In the Silurian Period, plants needed to make the cross-over from water to land so they developed ways in which to extract nutrients and water from the Earth. They developed an epidermis to slow down the loss of water and pores called stomata by which an exchange or gas could occur. By the Devonian Period, some plants had developed these characteristics leading to becoming the first land plants. At this time, five classes of plants had emerged - Psilotopsida , Trimerophytopsida, Zosterophyllopsida, Lycopdiopsida, and Equisetopsida. Ferns and fern allies, as we know them today, arose from these early plants.

Provenance: Purchased from a German collector unprepared, who dug it up around 1980.

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